I Am Yokai
by IronManSaidPinata
Summary: During the fire, Callaghan comes across a severely injured and trapped Tadashi. In a spur of the moment action, he rescues him and takes him to the warehouse to heal. However, Callaghan adapts his original plan into an even better one. However, as things fall into place, Hiro arrives and changes everything. (AU!Yokai! Tadashi *cause there isn't enough out there*)
1. Chapter 1

Tadashi jumped backwards, the raging heat from the fire clawing at him as he stumbled. Flames erupted into his vision as he hit the ground. He landed hard, his head knocking backward onto the tile. He blinked his eyes to clear his blurry vision and see his surroundings.

_Professor Callaghan…_

_Hiro…_

Slowly, Tadashi got to his feet and stumbled forward, his head swimming and pained. He recalled the short memory of seeing the school in flames from the inside. He remembered thinking of the Professor. He remembered running toward the school and Hiro, his little brother, trying to stop him. He had looked back at him and told him that someone had to help the Professor. It was only right, but he was breaking a promise that he had made. He had promised Hiro that he would always be there for him.

_I'm sorry Hiro,_ he thought to himself as he pushed ever forward through the burning wreckage of SFIT. Suddenly there was a loud crack and he flung himself to the side just in time as a burning building fell from the ceiling. However, he threw himself off balance near a small portion of the fire. He fell over on the side, singing his side. He hissed in pain as he tried to stand. Another loud crack sounded and he looked up to see broken and flaming rafters falling toward him. He gasped and closed his eyes, rolling to the side to avoid the kindling wood.

He yelled out when he felt something hot touch the left side of his face and body. He quickly rolled back the other way only to cry out again louder as something heavy and hot landed on his legs and right arm. Tadashi didn't dare move for the pain. He knew even through the haze that his legs were crushed and that the same could probably be said for his arm.

But it never came. He heard as the building collapsed around him, but when he cracked his eyes painfully open, all he saw was a shadow looming above him.

"Hiro…"

Callaghan had heard the young man cry out in pain. It seemed that his plan wasn't going to go as flawlessly as he thought it was going to. Still, Tadashi was a good boy and perhaps there was a way for him to save the young man. Hide him out in the woods and make it look like he got blown out of a window. He hurried forward, the microbots following after him and the signal that the neurotransmitter that the younger Hamada boy had built gave off. He dodged some wreckage, careful not to burn himself.

He found the older Hamada boy lying beneath two fallen rafters. One was across both his shins and the other, a cross beam, had landed on his arm. It must have hurt like all get out considering his cry of pain from earlier. Callaghan looked around at the flaming building around him. He didn't have much time left to make his escape like he planned before he took his little detour to save Tadashi.

Quickly, aided with the microbots, he lifted the heavy beams off the boy and picked him up, trying to find a way to hold him without causing him much more pain. It was then something hit him.

_He'll just have to grow up and deal with it!_

With that, he slung the boy's crushed and now useless arm around his shoulders and dragged him through the building and out the back to the abandoned portion of the woods that lay beyond. Once they were out of the smoke and once again breathing fresh air, Callaghan checked Tadashi over to assess the magnitude of his injuries. Callaghan knew that his legs and right arm were totally useless now, the nerves crushed past the shoulder. But he hadn't noticed that Tadashi's entire left side was burned. His left eye was puffy and red, the cool air causing the scarred skin to smoke slightly and it must have stung, he would probably never see through it again.

How could he fix this? Tadashi was his best student and had idolized him ever since he had started at SFIT, maybe longer. He couldn't take him to a doctor and risk giving away that he was alive, not after all he had gone through to fake his own death. He would have to help Tadashi himself. So, he dragged him to the hidden van that he had stowed away in the woods a few weeks back and situated him inside on the floor. Then Callaghan himself got into the driver's seat and put on a baseball cap for disguise and a low profile before driving down the dirt path in the woods and off into San Fransokyo. Maybe Tadashi could be of some use to him.


	2. Chapter 2 Adjusting

Hiro stood alone in front of the large grey stone. No umbrella shielded his head from the falling rain. This couldn't be his brother's. It didn't remind him of Tadashi despite that it said outright on the front that it belonged to his brother. It was too cold. Tadashi was perhaps the warmest person he knew. Hiro would never forget his brother; a man who had lived his life well.

A life that wasn't nearly long enough.

Hiro had cried enough in the past weeks, and it seemed that the sky was doing it for him. He had visited the grave with Baymax the week before, the robot even scanning the sight to prove to himself that it was Tadashi. When the healthcare robot had informed Hiro that there was no body, Hiro had to gently explain that the body hadn't been recovered. There had been nothing to find.

The report came back from the firemen and police that some charred fabric from Tadashi's sweater was the only remnant of Hiro's beloved older brother found. The same went for Professor Callaghan. A tear slid down Hiro's cheek, mingling with the rain droplets that collected and dripped down his face and off his chin and nose. He still missed him.

Hiro decided that it was time to go visit Baymax, so he slowly backed away from the memorial stone that showcased his brother's full name, date of birth, and date of death. He couldn't think of it like that or risk losing his composure and having a breakdown at his brother's grave in front of everyone else there. It didn't stop him from voicing his thoughts to his brother at last though.

"You promised you would always be here. Why Tadashi? Why? Why would you do something so stupid?" he asked the emotionless grave. He knew the answer in his heart. Tadashi was simply too good a person for his own good. He always wanted to help others. Baymax was spawn of that want. He wanted to help others like he never failed to help Hiro. But why at the risk of his own life? Had he thought that perhaps running into a burning building to save someone's life without having proper training was less dangerous than it sounded? His last words to Hiro were "Someone has to do something." Now Hiro wished that someone had done something. Just not _Tadashi_.

He hadn't deserved to die.

He finally turned and tore his eyes from the grave, walking away and back down the street in the general direction of home, where Baymax awaited him.

_My head hurts_

It was Tadashi's first thought as darkness of sleep dissipated until his eyes opened and light filled his sight. Immediately, something was wrong. He could see out of his left eye, but it wouldn't open all the way. However, his right eye was fine. He blinked until his vision focused and then tried to move. His arms and legs hurt beyond belief, but the pain in his legs cut off at his knees to become dull, and the same was true for his right arm.

How had all of this happened?

_That's right. I was in the SFIT building when it caught fire_, he thought, the last memory set returning to him. But he didn't remember everything. He raised his arms to look at them. One seared with pain all the way up to his wrist, but the other did not. When he caught sight of them, he nearly threw up the contents of his stomach. His entire right arm was metal! However, it worked and could move smoothly like normal fingers. Being an engineer, he had to admire the workings of the arm. It was most likely sensory wired, something that was merely a theory to most people.

He tried to sit up, but then he felt something jam down on his head and he heard the sound of a machine whirring to life and then, everything was gone in a flash, and then darkness.

When the young man woke up again, he didn't remember anything. Didn't remember waking up ever before in his life. Didn't remember being half-burned alive trying to save someone. He didn't even remember his name. Again, he lifted his hands to his vision, but didn't bother to be surprised, though he knew they weren't supposed to be there; metal and wires replacing flesh and blood. It wasn't right, but what did he know about the world around him.

"Well, well, well, I thought you'd never wake up," a voice said from nearby. Immediately, he swiveled his head around, though his vision was not totally clear in one eye, his other locked onto the target behind him.

_Target?_

Why was that the first thing that entered his mind when he looked at who spoke? It turned out to be an older man. He wore a sweater vest over a dirty dress shirt. The sleeves were rolled up and it looked like he had done some messy work involving sharp objects, ash, dirt, and…blood. The young man felt his innards coil up sickeningly at the thought that it could be his blood. He didn't respond to the man's sentence.

"I'm sure you have many questions. Beginning with who I am and who you are," the man stated, walking further into the younger man's field of vision, "my name is Callaghan, and your name is Yokai. You worked for me prior to your…_memory loss_."

_So that's my name. Yokai..._ he thought to himself. "How did I get here?" he questioned Callaghan. "It's a long story, so I'll give you the abridged version since I only what I saw when I found you. You were in a school fire and caught under two ceiling support beams, but you also burned your entire left side except for your neck, and your legs and right arms were crushed. You're fortunate that I found you," he explained.

"You said that I used to work for you. I suppose that it still stands?" the young man asked. Callaghan nodded. "Right you are my good boy," he said, something sinister adding to his voice.

"Why? Can't I be freed if I can't even remember ever serving you before?" he inquired, suspicion lacing his tone. "Oh, believe me, I didn't _make_ you serve me, Yokai, you came willingly. I trained you to become what you are, and I can train you again, with your…_upgrades_," Callaghan replied, smiling slightly more darkly for a man as kind looking as him.

"Explain what upgrades exactly, Callaghan," Yokai responded. Callaghan smiled wider. "You don't seem to have noticed your legs," he said, gesturing his head toward the sheet that covered Yokai's legs. The younger man lifted himself further off the pillow, propping himself up with his elbows at first before sitting himself up with his chest muscles. His body burned and he clenched his teeth in pain.

He whipped the white blanket off of his legs to reveal that he was wearing a pair of rolled up dirty jeans, but beyond that were both his legs. Both feet were replaced with some kind of metal shoe and leg that extended up to the knee. A shudder went through him as he recalled intense pain shooting from what would have been stubs.

"How?" he asked Callaghan, turning to face the older man. He merely chuckled. "Before, I was a robotics professor, more than capable of giving you a new set of legs that are now wired into your nervous system. Your arm as well. Your new friends helped with the medical parts since I don't have the expertise for that kind of thing. You were wrapped up in bandages for nearly a month before your burns had healed completely. You don't want to know what happened to your legs," Callaghan told him.

Yokai swallowed. He could probably figure out what had happened to his legs and arm and he didn't want to think about it. "So when can I walk again?" he asked, hoping to get moving as soon as possible. Callaghan's face brightened up and he said, "Immediately! Everything should be all healed over by now!"

Yokai was a little put off about his excitement, but he himself was just as eager to get moving. He shifted again, swinging his legs until they hung from the side of the bed which turned out to be nothing more than two different sized mattresses stacked unevenly on top of each other. The weight of the heavy metal prosthetics attached to his knees felt strange and unusable. Not to mention the pain that the sudden weight brought on. He would be fortunate if he could stand without losing his balance.

"They need to be tweaked. You were an engineer before the fire, one of the best I might add, so you should be able to work on them yourself," Callaghan assumed. Yokai gripped the side of the bed with both hands, unsure and nervous. If the hand was sensory wired, he wouldn't be able to bend it like he had. His other hand, its back scarred and pink, still functioned properly.

_Great, I'm starting to think like a robot_, he thought ruefully. Slowly, he slid off the bed and let his feet rest on the floor, the pain in his knees subsiding now that the metal wasn't hanging as dead weight from them. He tentatively put weight on his legs, feeling the prosthetics adjust to the new position and holding the weight. He lifted the rest of his body off the bed and tried to get his bearings. He weaved around a little, trying to get used to not being able to feel anything in his legs. He took a step backwards, instinctively trying to support himself. The leg reacted to the movement and adapted yet again to support his weight. He stepped forward, the legs lagged slightly and a mechanical whine suggested that they were a little slow for walking. He would have to improve that.

Getting ahead of the legs, he stumbled and nearly fell forward. However, Callaghan caught him and guided him back to the bed. "Yes, they do seem to need tweaking. I'll be back in a while with the necessary tools, Yokai. You can rest while I'm gone. That's an order," he said, turning and walking back into the shadows.

"Yes Master Callaghan."


	3. Rising Darkness

Chapter 3 Rising Darkness

Yokai kicked his way through a wall of the Krei tech lab. He had something important that his master needed for their cause to complete the work on whatever it was Callaghan was working on. He careened out onto the streets and, using what microbots his master had made, lifted himself onto a nearby rooftop. His little "friends" gathered around him obediently as Yokai watched the San Fransokyo police arrive at the scene. After a few minutes of observing, he left, running from roof to roof with help from his enhanced prosthetic legs and the microbots.

He made it back to the warehouse in record time, having made sure not to leave any evidence whatsoever except a missing piece of tech and a man sized hole in the wall. His master seemed happy to see him when he returned.

"I take it that you got out scratch-free and without someone seeing you?"Callaghan asked, his hands in a steeple against his chin. The man was so much more different on the inside than his outward appearance showed. Yokai knew better after nearly a month of working with the man. As the plan progressed he saw that is master was getting less and less sleep and there were times when he seemed to have small bouts of insanity or outrage when he thought Yokai wasn't nearby and didn't see.

But Yokai saw everything. He watched everything that transpired around him with eyes as sharp as an eagle's in case Callaghan let slip something about his past.

"Of course, need you ask?" he asked, removing the white and red kabuki mask and setting it down on a metal cabinet. "I got the Iritithium calibrator you said you needed." Callaghan smiled even wider at that and extended his hand. Yokai stepped forward and deposited the small device in his master's hand.

"Excellent Yokai. The portal is nearly complete and we can soon bring that murderer to justice," Callaghan said, sinisterly gripping the small device. "I trust the microbots served you well?" he questioned. Yokai nodded.

"They make efficient deterrents to any problem I come across. Having more of them to command might make jumping from buildings easier," Yokai replied sarcastically. In all truth, it would be helpful to have a deterrent in case the problems he ever came across were _human_. Callaghan nodded.

"Very well, I will start the machine up again this evening and by tomorrow you shall have a full army of them at your disposal," he said, twisting his swivel chair around and facing the computer monitors that displayed various views such as the security cameras around the warehouse and others for websites about Krei Tech and one newspaper's website displaying a headline that Yokai didn't get a chance to read as Callaghan clicked the minimize button, sending the screen into the browser bar at the bottom of the page.

"You can go now Yokai," he said, his voice suddenly rough and almost venomous. Yokai bowed his head out of respect for his master and began to pad, or in his case clank, out of the room. "Oh and Yokai, how are your newest appendages working for you?" Callaghan asked from across the room. "They're working fine. I just haven't quite gotten used to the strength yet," he replied, turning his head slightly but remaining on course. He saw Callaghan's head tilt upward in acknowledgement, but he didn't say anything. Dismissed, Yokai continued out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

What was up with Callaghan? Yokai pulled the skin-tight hood off his head and shook his hair, running his metal fingers through it to loosen it up. It flipped down and hung around his forehead. It was time for some rest, not to mention a tune up on his legs. A few days ago, Callaghan had mentioned that something big was going to go down soon and Yokai didn't want to get stumbled because of his legs. They had to be in near-perfect condition already, but they weren't quite a smooth ride. He hoped that the upgrades he planned to make tonight would fix that.

He reached over to the metal cabinet at his bedside and opened up one of the drawers in the cabinet, pulling the entire thing out and setting it on the single-sheeted mattress. He grabbed a screwdriver to begin the process and got to work.

When he was finished with perhaps the 15th round of improvements, the leg functioned more like a human foot than before. Last time, he had discovered that the root cause of his trouble was the fact that Callaghan had used a simple metal rod to create the joint that replaced his knee cap. So, unhooking all the sensory wires again and setting up the placeholders, he removed the two prosthetics and began work on the new boots. They were a shiny mix between iron and steel; the product of searching for metal in a car's graveyard. Callaghan had apparently forged the outer shell and then returned to work on them the rest of the way to complete them.

Not bad considering they were made from scratch.

Suddenly, a sharp pain split across his forehead. He screwed his eyes shut and raised a hand to his head, rubbing the patch of unburned skin roughly with his metal hand and gentler with his burned one on the side it belonged to. When the pain subsided into a dull throbbing, he lessened the massaging movements he was making and sighed. Yet another episode.

He marked it with a small dash to serve as a tally mark on a small piece of paper in the bottom of the drawer. This was seventh time that had happened to him. Originally he had hoped that it had to do with getting his memory back, but when he asked his master about it, he had been told that it was left over from the concussion that he got while in the fire. Callaghan had told him to keep track of the number of times he got headaches. Yokai ran his fingers lightly over the heavily scarred skin surrounding his left eye and forehead. He only felt pressure on it, no pain, no tickling sensation, only the faint movement of his fingers on the skin.

He turned his eyes up to look at his reflection in the dirty glass window across from him.

_Who was I?_

**_What_**_ was I?_

_Was I always this?_

_Was I ever human?_

_…__Could I be again?_


	4. Unmasked

Chapter 4 Unmasked

_IT WORKED!_

The plan actually worked! After chasing this guy all over the city and then tracking him to the warehouse they were in now had paid off. Finally, they had managed to tag team it and knock their enemy down and the mask away from his face. Hiro had scrambled to grab it and once it was in his possession, he quickly got to his feet and backed away from the man clad entirely in black.

"It's over Krei," he stated firmly, "now stand up!" His voice carried more force than he thought it would, surprising himself. At last he could see the face of his brother's murderer and put him away, possibly for life, since the fire he caused cost him the life of his brother and that of his idol, Professor Callaghan. "I said get up!" he yelled.

"Be careful Hiro, you saw him dropkick Baymax! He got pounded!" Wasabi called from above. Baymax appeared about a yard away from Hiro so he wasn't too worried. Slowly, the young boy watched as the masked man got to his feet, the faint sound of metal clanking when he stood.

"You shouldn't have done that."

Yokai knew he was in trouble the moment the group had ambushed him and his mask had fallen away. His master had given him explicit instructions that he was never under any circumstances whatsoever reveal his identity to anyone. **Period**.

He was going to be so dead for doing this…

Hiro stiffened at the sound of the voice. That was a more menacing and threatening version of an angry voice that he heard whenever he got in to trouble. Like the time he got found bot-fighting by…

"Tadashi?"

The word was out of his mouth before he could clamp down on it. He shook his head slightly, still holding tight to the mask in his hands. Hiro's head began to whirl for a moment before his…no, it couldn't be his Nii-san, spoke.

"Who?"

"Tadashi…that's-that's your name. D-Don't you remember?" he asked, choking it out through the giant lump that grew in his throat. The man before him nodded and stepped closer to Hiro, the light shining on his feature. His skin was horribly scarred on the left side and his eye didn't seem to be able to open all the way.

"Whoever you think I am…I'm not. My name is _Yokai_," he said replying firmly, clenching his fists. All of the teen heroes standing before him seemed shocked at his appearance. "I'M NOT WHO YOU THINK I AM! I'M NOT THIS, THIS TADASHI PERSON!" he shouted with as much force and anger he could muster, sending the boy before him flinching backward toward the wall. However, as soon as the name Tadashi left his mouth, Yokai was sent into another wave of pain radiating from between his eyebrows.

_Oh, not now!_ He yowled in his head. This was perhaps the worst time possible for an attack!

And him without his paper.

"Tadashi!" he heard the purple armor clad boy clamor over to him and put his hands around his shoulders. Yokai growled and pushed the boy off of him with his strong metal arm. The boy, called Hiro by his friends, slid back across the floor and bumped into the robot that contrasted his armor. His helmet prevented him from getting hurt, but he was shocked about the sudden refusal of comfort.

"Tadashi…" he whispered. Yokai looked back at him, a partially feral look in his eyes because of the pain. "Stop. Calling. Me. That. My name is YOKAI!" he ground, shouting the last word. Suddenly, he realized that the annoying boy had dropped his mask on the ground when he had been pushed away. One of the team watching shocked from above saw his line of sight and followed it to the mask.

"Hiro!" she yelled, leaping from where she was and making for the mask at the same time as Yokai. Both reached it at the same time, but she didn't reach it fast enough as he swiped it off the floor and secured it around his head, covering his face. She gasped at the closeness between them before a frown came across her face. "Baymax, capture!" another one of them ordered. The girl standing in front of him suddenly lashed out again like before, striking at him with one of her yellow discs. Yokai quickly blocked the attack with his arm and kicked her in the torso with one of his feet, knocking her back into a wall.

With his mask once again secured on his face, he commanded the microbots to come to him. They encircled him and crawled up his unfeeling legs before lifting him up away from the group. The robot called Baymax began to fly after him, but with a wave of his hand, Yokai knocked the red armored bot out of the air and crashing into the ground.

"He's getting away!" one cried, "Baymax! Track 'im!" Yokai was lifted through the opening in the roof that he had entered through and into the night before he could hear what the robot's reply was. Safely out of the warehouse, he rushed across the roof before jumping to the ground. His heavy metal feet left an impression on the pavement below them. With the possibility that the robot could have picked him up on its scanners again like it had done last time, he should probably be careful and take a slightly more interesting route to his next destination.

Using the enhanced strength in his right arm, he lifted a sewer lid off of a man hole and got down the ladder, pulling the lid back over him and descending into the darkness. The golden lenses in the mask that cast everything in yellow switched automatically to night vision, allowing him to see where he was. There was a good chance that the robot wouldn't be able to track him through the thick layer of metal and concrete concealing him. He knew he would have to hurry to get to the docks in time to meet his master. He broke into a run, his normally loud footsteps muted by the special boots he wore to dampen the sound of his clanking footsteps.

When Yokai heard footsteps behind him, he knew he was getting followed. Evidently, they had picked up on his disappearing act through the manhole. Whoever it was had gained considerable ground behind him since Yokai could hear him like he was right there. He shifted his head to look over his shoulder and saw the boy dressed in the purple armor from before chasing after him, a stricken yet determined took on his face.

"Tadashi, please! Come back!" he shouted. Yokai stopped dead, just standing there. His fingers twitched, but he resisted the urge to clench them and turn around to scream at the boy. He waited patiently while the boy caught up to him until he heard him come up behind him panting.

"Tadashi I-' he began but Yokai cut him off in grabbing his arm as the boy reached out and touched his elbow. He yanked him closer to his face so that the kid was nose to nose with his mask. "I said don't call me that," he growled before once again throwing the boy back. This time however, the boy braced himself and didn't slide so far away.

"Please…Yokai. You know me! How could you forget? I know you're still in there somewhere!" he cried, looking vulnerable for a moment before his resolve seemed to steel and he looked even more determined than before. Yokai felt something stir within him, but he clamped down on it immediately, he wouldn't let his own resolve crumbled just because a small boy who he _maybe_ knew from the past gave him puppy dog eyes, shed a tear or two, and claimed he knew him.

"I can prove it! My name is Hiro Hamada, I'm 14 years old and I always get into fights with bullies at my school! You always used to come and rescue me from them! I used to go bot fighting and get in trouble a lot, you would come and save me then too! Our parents died when I was little and you took care of me, we came here to live with Aunt Cass, she misses you very much and even closed the café that she runs and didn't bake for two weeks when she thought you were dead!" the boy's tone grew more and more frantic and desperate as he tried to prove to Yokai that he knew him.

Again a faint pain rushed through Yokai's head and he raised a hand to his temple. If only to stop the pain, he had to stop the boy from running his mouth. He moved into action, his sudden movement after having listened to him for so long surprising the boy when his left hand struck the boy in the back of his head. He had taken care not to use his metal hand for he could accidentally give the boy a nasty head wound that would cause him to bleed out and despite himself, Yokai knew that a sewer was not the place for this boy to die.

He scooped him up in his arms, resting his head over his shoulder and carrying him like a toddler. Something did strike him as familiar when he carried the boy this way, making him feel that the boy maybe knew what he was talking about. However, as eager as he was to learn about the past, he knew that it wasn't the time and he would have to wait until after everything surrounding Callaghan was over and he could be free of the man. He couldn't even remember why he had joined him before the fire. He shook the mutinous thoughts off and kept moving. He was late.

_I didn't sign up for this_, he thought begrudgingly as he reached the ladder that would lead to the man hole near the docks. He slung the boy even further over his shoulder and began to climb with both arms. When he reached the top, he set Hiro down on the ground and covered the manhole again. Standing upright once again, he gave one last look to the boy before retreating further into the docks to find his master.

When he found Callaghan, he was standing and staring out at the bay with his hands folded behind his back. He looked like a king surveying newly acquired territory. Yokai kneeled behind him out of respect for an older man and his master.

"Did you get the information on the flash drive?" Callaghan asked. Yokai nodded. "Yes, master," he replied. A chuckle rang out and seemed to echo through the docks, reverberating off the metal crates.

"Good. Now let's have a look at the data," he said, turning around and extending a hand to Yokai for the flash drive. Yokai reached a hand into his inner coat pocket and felt around. There was nothing there. "Oh blast," he whispered. He began patting himself in places where there were pockets but he couldn't locate a small hard bump near any one of them.

"You lost the flash drive?!" Callaghan was furious. Yokai feared for his life all of a sudden. He prepared to have his microbots shoot out and either protect him or blast him up to the roof. "Y-Yes master. It must have fallen out of my pocket when I battled the kids," he said, not thinking his statement through. Callaghan turned around face devoid of emotion.

"What kids?" he asked. Yokai swallowed. "A-A group of teenagers and a big robot they call Baymax, sir. They seemed to be surprised to see me and they said they knew me. One said that I used to protect him from bullies and insinuated that I was his brother. Is this true?" he explained, the final question coming out strong with a suspicious edge. When Callaghan didn't respond right away, Yokai grew annoyed. "I said, is it true?"

"No."

The simple answer annoyed Yokai. "Explain," he commanded. His master turned around. "Never use that tone again with me young man. But, I understand that your recent _failure _has made you upset and it is to be expected, so I will tell you what I know about them. The boy you encountered was and has been a trouble maker. You made the mistake of helping him once when he was being chased down by police after he got caught participating in an illegal bot fight. After that, he came by more and more often bothering you and causing you trouble. His friends went to the school that caught fire and consorted with that boy.

"I at first suspected that they might have started the fire that nearly ended both of us, but I do not believe they did. I hope that this explanation is good enough for you, Yokai," he finished. Yokai nodded, deciding it was best to leave it at that and not question his master any further.

After all, it was nearly time for justice to take its course.


	5. Chapter 5 Judgment Day

Chapter 4 Judgment Day

Hiro sat in his desk chair, staring at the dark screen of his computer. His hands in a steeple under his lips, he thought about the events of the past two days. Not just events, _revelations_ were more like it. Baymax sat in the corner against the wall, Mochi in his arms, a quiet chant of "hairy baby, hairy baaaby," leaving his voice box about every ten seconds.

Hiro closed his eyes and thought about what he had discovered about his brother. According to the most recent information, the man who had been giving him and his friends so much trouble over the last month or so had been Tadashi. Or rather, Yokai, as he called himself now. Apparently, his brother had not died in the fire at SFIT, and had instead become a masked vigilante running around San Fransokyo and stealing technology from Krei Tech for an unknown reason.

At least, it was unknown until just yesterday.

GoGo and the others had found a flash drive lying on the ground of the warehouse that they had duked it out with Tadashi in and took it home with them. Later, GoGo had called him and told him that she and the gang was coming over and that they needed to show him something. When they had come, GoGo had plugged the flash drive into Hiro's computer and pulled up the data they had managed to find.

There were only two files on the flash drive. One had been there for a significant amount of time, and the other had been just downloaded onto it moments before Hiro and his friends had found Tadashi in the Krei Tech building. When they had tracked him to the warehouse, he seemed to be analyzing something on some kind of holographic screen attached to his wrist and they figured that this was what it was.

The first file, the newest, had some old schematics for a trans-dimensional portal that Krei Tech had been working on a few years back. It had been placed under classified and then forgotten since it apparently had backfired and a test pilot had been lost in the accident.

The second file, dating back to just a few weeks after the incident, was a video of the test. Most of the people were nameless engineers, then there was Alistair Krei, the test pilot, and…Professor Callaghan?

Something seemed familiar about the test pilot, so Hiro had looked up who she was in the other file and found out that her name was Abigail Callaghan. She was Professor Callaghan's daughter. That had sparked something in the group watching the screen. Watching more of the video, they looked on as the test began to go wrong, Abigail disappeared into the portal, Krei did nothing to stop it, and Callaghan looked on, devastation wrenching across his features. There were many questions that they came away with.

First, why would Tadashi want to build a trans-dimensional portal? Second, what did the video of a failed test have to do with anything? And why would he be after Krei? Krei had done nothing to Tadashi.

They sat in silent speculation until Fred piped up with an idea that maybe Tadashi wasn't the only one to have survived the fire. When asked to explain, he merely said that perhaps Callaghan had survived the fire as well and was trying to get revenge on Krei because he felt that Krei was responsible for the death of his daughter.

Everyone had to admit that it was a good idea, but then Callaghan would want to have a shot at Krei out in the open so he could show everyone how he viewed him as: a murderer. But when would Callaghan have a chance to get at Krei? The group decided to reconvene the next day with more information.

So Hiro sat upstairs in his desk chair and hadn't moved for hours. Finally, some signs of life came from his suddenly wildly ringing phone. He grabbed it and looked at who was calling him. It was GoGo, so he answered it.

"Hello?"

"Hiro. Turn on the TV, channel 9, _now_."

"Okay, but why?"

"Figured out when Callaghan might take a shot at Krei."

"Got it."

"The gang and I are coming over, we'll be there in a few, be ready to suit up."

"'Kay, will do."

"Bye."

Hiro quickly swung his chair around to turn on the TV and flipped to channel 9. It was the local news station and they were doing a feature on a new Krei Tech building that was opening that afternoon. Evidently, Alistair Krei himself was going to be there for its grand opening. A large crowd was supposed to be there, most of the city and several news stations. It was the perfect opportunity for Callaghan to make his point public.

GoGo and the others strode into his room about 20 minutes later to find Hiro still watching the news feature.

"C'mon man, we gotta suit up to stop Callaghan!" Fred exclaimed when he saw Hiro, his signature goofy grin adorning his face. Hiro smiled determinedly and nodded, running over to where he stored his armor and quickly pulled it on, moving on to equipping Baymax. However, before he could leave the room, his eyes and body drifted toward a certain special artifact from Tadashi's previous life.

When the entire team was ready, they all set out in Fred's car, heading for the new building.

Yokai had spent hours before this moment preparing, assuring himself of his strength, telling himself that he could do this. He hadn't spoken to Callaghan since the day before yesterday after his run in with the 6 heroes and Callaghan had made no effort to speak with him.

Yokai had the feeling that he couldn't totally trust Callaghan like he had previously. He had never let Yokai in on his plans and refused to tell him anything about his motives behind his actions. It caused Yokai to consider his actions over the last month, but he didn't have anywhere else to go. Today promised to see the fulfillment of Callaghan's plan, whatever it was.

All Yokai knew for sure was that he was to be Callaghan's enforcer, the one to capture Krei and keep the police and crowd at bay with the microbots. He had been unable to sleep at all the night before, his brain working overtime for no reason other than it gave him some semblance of a feeling of normalcy. He had spent the entire night tinkering with his prosthetics and making them work better. He had found a small virus in all three that he knew didn't belong there, so he removed it and the adjusted the movement settings so that they would adapt to position and command with split second accuracy.

Like they hadn't been near-perfect before.

The sound of footsteps alerted him to someone's presence behind him. He whirled around; hands up in a battle stance, only to lower them again at the sight of Callaghan. His master raised his hands in a gesture of surrender before walking toward him again.

"I brought you a gift," he said, pulling something out of the pocket of his grey hoodie. He handed it to Yokai who looked at it for a moment before determining its function.

"A wrist laser, how charming. Best and most accurate in the world since it's attached to ones wrist, giving the best view and accurate aim," Yokai replied, listing off what he knew of the special weapon. Callaghan smiled proudly at his apprentice. "Very nice, I see you've been researching your technology. Now try it on," he said. Yokai did as he was told, securing the metal bracer that the blaster was anchored to. Since he had also enhanced the sensory wiring in the arm, he felt it when the small anchors in the bracer dug into his arm through the metal.

"Ouch." He stated before he examined the fancy gadget. "It's attached to the wiring now. You can use it like its part of your arm," Callaghan informed him. Yokai nodded once and then practiced readying the small laser and putting it away. It fitted sleekly onto his metal arm and he couldn't help but smile at the innovative machine.

"Are you ready for this?" Callaghan asked him, stepping closer to him and laying a hand on his shoulder. Yokai nodded again, "As ready as I'll ever be, sir." Callaghan patted his shoulder and then began to walk toward the exit of the warehouse. Yokai followed not far behind him.

"So begins the hour of judgment."

Just as they had thought, Callaghan and Yokai made their move during the press conference for the new Krei Tech building. Hiro flew up to meet a microbot covered Yokai who had captured Alistair Krei.

"Please! Please, don't hurt me! Please! I'll give you anything you want! Money, I can do that! More of those…things! I can do that too!" Krei was shouting, to which the only reply was, "I need none of that, scum!"

Hiro hovered Baymax several meters away from Yokai and he steeled his resolve to help his brother come back. "Yokai! Let. Him. Go." He commanded. It got the older boy's attention and made his head turn toward him. "I don't take orders from you," he growled.

"Yokai!" a gruff voice shouted from below. Yokai immediately stopped what he was doing and he looked down to see the person below. "Yes, master?" he replied. Hiro's eyes widened at that. Tadashi had always been his own man, never taking orders from anyone but Aunt Cass and his teachers.

"Come and get me, I wish to speak with the boy myself," the man in the grey hoodie ordered. Immediately, Tadashi lowered himself and Krei to the man's level, microbots wrapping around his legs up to his waist. Tadashi lifted them all up to Hiro's level and then stood at attention beside his hooded companion.

"Go take care of the other ones. They'll be after the portal," the man said, his head tilted down so a shadow was cast over his features. Yokai nodded once and then shot away taking a pillar of microbots with him. Hiro watched him for a moment before guiding Baymax over to a building edge and landing there.

The man in the hoodie remained where he was at about 10 meters away. Hiro needed to know if it was indeed Callaghan or simply some terrorist.

"Who are you?" he demanded immediately.

"Why, Hiro, I would have thought that you would recognize the voice of your would-have-been-robotics professor," the man replied, pulling his hood down to reveal his face. It was just as the group had suspected, but it confounded Hiro no less.

"Surprised to see me?"

"Not entirely."

"Why would you do all this?" Hiro shouted down at the wayward professor; gesturing around with his arms. The professor's forehead creased with deeper frown lines.

"Because of him," Callaghan growled, pointing at a whimpering Krei still caught in the tight clutches of Yokai's microbots. "He and his failed 'tests' got my daughter killed! She was my life! I want to see justice done! I want him to feel what it's like to lose something important to you!" he shouted angrily.

"BUT WHY TADASHI!?" Hiro shouted back, anger surging into his voice and face. He wanted Baymax to terminate Callaghan so badly right now, and he was so close to removing his healthcare chip altogether and leaving only the battle chip.

"WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE SAVED HIM AND LEFT HIM OUT OF THIS? HE WENT IN AFTER YOU TO SAVE YOU!"

"THAT WAS HIS MISTAKE!" Callaghan snarled in return. Hiro set his jaw into a thin line at Callaghan and turned around to see only air. Baymax had left his side at some point during the argument. With that, Callaghan turned his head away from Hiro and down to the streets below where the fight had reached its end, with Baymax and the other four heroes lying unconscious on the ground.

"Yokai, get up here and finish this! I need to complete work on the portal!" he shouted. Yokai immediately did as he was told and rose up to his master's level.

Yokai twisted his head up when he heard Callaghan call down to him. Each of the people who had just attempted to take him out had all failed miserably. However, they had all tried to reach him somehow. They all called him their friend, telling him that they knew him before, but he didn't recognize any of them. It was especially hard to tell that they were friendly considering they were constantly coming at him with their weapons drawn.

He rose up to Callaghan and lowered his master down to the ground where he ran off to work on the portal more. It was nearly completed and had already opened, sucking up pieces of Krei's building. Krei had at last stopped his sniveling and was simply looking on in horror as the architectural masterpiece he had been working on for the last two years was slowly being torn apart.

"Yokai! Eradicate the boy!" Callaghan shouted up to him. Yokai nodded yet again in a silent display of acquiescence to his master's plan. He reached his hand out to his side and it filled with a staff made up of the small metal microbots. They fit together perfectly and locked in place, ceasing all movement. Yokai twirled the staff and moved over toward the building, stepping down onto the ledge and making his way toward the boy in purple armor before him. This one didn't seem to have any weapons on hand.

"Please, don't do this! I know you're still in there! Tadashi wouldn't do this!" he shouted at him, his brown eyes pleading. Yokai swung his staff around, the end connecting with the boy's helmet. It knocked him backwards and he connected with the gravel on top of the roof. Yokai spun the staff into position once again and charged, but the boy rolled around and out of his way.

It continued like that for a quite some time. The boy constantly trying to make Yokai stop by reasoning with him and rattling off facts about Yokai that he thought he knew. He kept calling him Tadashi and Yokai kept trying to push the pain in his forehead back. Finally, Yokai knocked the boy down, his helmet flying off, and lifted the staff above his head, preparing to strike the boy for the final blow.

"T-Tadashi, please d-don't do this..." he rasped, his eyes cracking open ever so slightly to reveal tears, perhaps of sadness but more likely because of pain.

"Why? Why shouldn't I?" he shouted down at the boy, gritting his teeth in pain from the intense pangs he received in his temples and across his forehead.

"Because…I know that you'll remember someday…and then you'll never forgive yourself if you do this. I'm your brother, Tadashi, I'm Hiro, and we promised that we'd always protect one another," the boy finished. Yokai was determined not to let this interfere or get to him.

But it did.

He remembered.

He remembered standing in front of his parent's graves as a young boy. He remembered taking Hiro and Aunt Cass's hands as they walked to the car. He remembered moving in with Aunt Cass, and vowing to be there for Hiro as long as he could, to always protect his little brother. He remembered living up to that promise until not long ago. He remembered his pride in Hiro and his care for his little brother.

It all came rushing back.

He stepped away from Hiro, the staff of microbots disbanding and returning to the main hive. Feeling sick, he whipped his mask off and doubled over in pain, one hand gripping his head and the other grasped at his turning stomach. He felt like he was going to throw up the contents of his stomach, but when he wretched, nothing came up.

_Tadashi __**is**__ my name!_

_I was human!_

_I was good!_

_I still can be!_

The thoughts brought him hope that maybe there was a chance for him to be okay. He dropped to the ground on his side and took several deep breaths. Laying still calmed his stomach and he could once again hear through his pounding heartbeat. He glimpsed over at his brother laying not 10 yards away from him. He felt a twinge of pain again, but not in his head or stomach, rather, in his heart. He realized that he could have been the one to end his brother's life; he, the one who was supposed to protect it.

He sat up and crawled over to his brother. He looked down at the bruised face of his little knucklehead and scooped his thin body into his arms. The sound of thrusters reached his ears and he saw Baymax land nearby.

"Hiro," the robot said ambling over as fast as he could. The robot merely stood near the broken pair of brothers. Anger swelled up inside Tadashi and his brow became marred by a deep frown.

He stood up, handing Hiro to Baymax. "Baymax, watch after him. Give him a scan, but he should be fine. If I don't come back, take care of him. And don't take 'I am satisfied with my care' for an answer if you know something is wrong. Be his friend. Be his partner. Be his brother, in my stead, alright?" Tadashi said, charging up the wrist laser.

"I will do as you ask, Tadashi," he replied. Tadashi nodded to his creation and smiled at him before jumping down onto a lower ledge. He did so until he had reached the bottom and was crouched near Callaghan. His ex-master was currently watching as his creation decimated Krei's building.

"Callaghan!" he shouted to get the older man's attention. He immediately wished that he hadn't as he noticed the strap around Callaghan's head too late. However, he was just in time to dodge a wave of undulating microbots and roll back into an attack position.

"As you can see, I came prepared for your betrayal, Yokai!" he snarled, turning toward the older Hamada boy. Tadashi growled under his breath and replied, "My name is _Tadashi_, you demented son of a gun! And I can't betray someone I was forced to serve!"

Callaghan smirked and another lash of microbots whipped toward Tadashi. He jumped back and then dodged as several slashed at him. Eventually, he grabbed onto one and climbed over it, sliding down and into the cesspool of microbots it had sprouted from. He made a mad dash for Callaghan who was at the center of it, but instead found his legs being dragged under by the microbots.

_Okay, this probably wasn't my best idea yet…_

"NO!"

Hiro had awoken to see Baymax staring into his eyes from above. He blinked a couple times before lifting his hands to his face to rub it. It stung and ached like all get out. He recalled being beaten up by Tadashi, but at least he had managed to finally get through and reach his brother.

He hoped so.

"On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?" Baymax inquired from beside him. _I would love to say 11 but then he wouldn't let me go anywhere. I've gotta help Tadashi first_, Hiro thought. "three," he said, trying to find that magic number between not quite fine but not worrisome that also wasn't conspicuous. Baymax let him go, so Hiro made for the edge of the building.

"I have been instructed to watch after you until Tadashi returns. You must stay here," Baymax stated firmly, laying a big hand on Hiro's shoulder.

"No I have to help Tadashi," Hiro replied, pulling forward with all his might against the big robot's armor. He reached the ledge in time to watch what was happening below. From there it looked like Callaghan had gotten a hold of the neural transmitter and was controlling the swarm of microbots. He watched as his older brother, who wasn't in possession of his mask, dodged each attacking tendril of microbots that attempted to smash him into the pavement with an almost acrobatic ease. He had never been able to move like that before, no matter how good at fighting he was.

At last, he jumped onto one of the larger branches of microbots and shimmied on top of it before sliding down into the main hive where Callaghan was. Hiro could see that what he was attempting wasn't easy and that he seemed to be having trouble not staying in one spot for more than a millisecond. Five yards away from Callaghan, a small tidal wave of microbots rose up behind Tadashi and attacked his legs, dragging him down. Hiro watched as his older brother scrabbled to get a handhold on the ever shifting form of the microbots, only to fail and be pulled under the obsidian surface.

"NO!" Hiro cried as he watched his brother's black gloved hand, the only dark surface not shining in the sea of iridescent darkness, disappear beneath the swarm. Suddenly, he thought of something. Tadashi hadn't had his mask on when he had jumped down there. Immediately, the younger brother jumped into action and looked around for the kabuki mask. He found it lying strewn on the gravel, face down. He picked up his helmet and put it on his head, carrying the mask in his other hand.

"Guys, do any of you copy?" he cried into the communicator. The affirmative replies coming from surprisingly all four of them gave him hope. "I need you to go around behind Callaghan and ambush him. I have an idea to distract him, but you'll have to work fast because I don't know how long or well it'll work!" More affirmative answers were heard and he watched as his friends began to move off behind the undulating mass of robots.

Hiro pulled his damaged helmet from his face and jumped onto Baymax's back with one hand. He held onto the white and red kabuki mask and ordered Baymax to fly down there into Callaghan's four 'o clock and hover there. He quickly put the mask on and hoped that Callaghan's mask didn't cancel out reception from Tadashi's.

Fortunately, while it kept him from controlling the microbots completely, he could still slow them down and cause them to become confused from receiving two separate signals. Hiro used this to his advantage, causing the microbots to lock up and freeze into a twitching mass rather than a constantly moving wave. It was then that his friends began to attack Callaghan. Go-Go tossed her discs, Honey Lemon used her explosive chem. Balls, Wasabi slashed, and Fred torched the microbots, shaving away at them little by little to finish this.

"Baymax, let me down and go help the others," Hiro ordered through gritted teeth. The strain of ordering his microbots to go against Callaghan was beginning to give him a headache. He pushed harder against Callaghan, who was unaware that Hiro's friends were hacking away at the swarm behind him at the moment as he pushed back against Hiro's attempts.

Hiro planted himself on the ground and put all his strength behind the focus of what he was doing. He gritted his teeth so hard that he was certain they would crack from the pressure. However he didn't stop. Callaghan was weakening from the mental pressure as well and wouldn't hold out much longer, seeing as he was turning red. The edges of Hiro's vision were darkening as he fought to keep his heart's intense thumping out of his mind.

Suddenly, a blast of red light shot out from in the middle of the pool of microbots and zapped the side of Callaghan's head, snapping the band holding the neurotransmitter. Callaghan fell to his knees and onto his side. Hiro's own knees felt weak as darkness enveloped him and he felt obliged to let oblivion take him at the moment. He didn't feel as he hit the ground and his own neurotransmitter broke.

Tadashi struggled against the microbots that had snatched him from behind and wrapped themselves around his legs, dragging him below the surface. He didn't dare open his mouth, but writhed all the same. He remembered that he only had to charge up his wrist laser and get close enough to the top to fire a blast at Callaghan's transmitter and destroy it. He clawed his way through the many microbots attempting to hold him down.

When he could at last see Callaghan, who looked strangely red-faced and fatigued, he wasted no time in raising his arm out of a hole in between the cracks made by the microbots and firing his charge laser at the side of Callaghan's skull where the neurotransmitter was located. He ceased firing as soon as he had destroyed the small device so he didn't injure Callaghan like he wanted too.

A moment or so later, all the microbots came clattering to the ground and fell still. He lifted himself out of the swarm and laid backward on the solid metal pieces behind him, shutting his eyes and gasping for breath. He looked up to see that his work was not done and that the portal had ripped off the roof of Krei's building at least. He got to his knees shakily, but felt a small hand on his shoulder.

"We got this. Go take care of Hiro," Go-Go said, a rare glad-to-have-you-back smile on her face. Tadashi nodded in response and began to look around for Hiro. To his horror, he spotted his little brother crumpled on the ground, the white and red kabuki mask on his face. A rush of adrenaline gave Tadashi the energy to run over to his brother and cradle him in his arms. Hiro's cheeks were bright red along with the rest of his face like he hadn't been getting enough air, but his chest rose and fell rhythmically as he took steady breaths. Tadashi took off one of his gloves and gripped the back of Hiro's head as he held the younger boy in his lap and held him close.

He wrapped Hiro in a tight and tearful hug and squeezed his eyes shut until he felt something get placed on his head. He opened his eyes and blinked a few times to clear the tears from them and he looked down into the deep brown eyes of his little brother. "Now you look yourself again," he said, his lips curling up into a small smile. Tadashi couldn't help but smile. It was his old lucky hat. The icing on the cake.

_It's time to go home._


	6. Second Chances

**2 Weeks Later**

Tadashi blinked his eyes open, sleep having fogged them overnight. He yawned and looked around for what had awoken him up at the early hour of 6:30 in the morning. He spotted his alarm clock blinking on the nightstand, but wasn't quite ready to turn it off. He rested his head back down on his plush white pillow, shoving his arms underneath it and hugging the soft material to his chest and chin as he listened to the rather pleasant melody that streamed from the alarm.

_"__Give me a quiet mind…and I, I love you_

_You give me a quiet mind…and I, I love you_

_Until the end_

_Until the end"_

The singer kept going, but Tadashi knew the song. It was _A Quiet Mind_ by Blue October and he had heard it on the radio before. It made him allow his mind to wander off into a place where he began to gather connections between his relationships and the song. He was no longer normal, so a cave to run and hide in where one could feel normal again sounded like heaven. His relationships with his friends and family were broken, but in repair, and dear god, he needed strength.

He closed his eyes, shutting off his thoughts and just listening to the music. The world around him wasn't something he wanted to think about at the moment. Unfortunately, he didn't get much choice as the song ended and was quickly replaced by _So What_ by Pink. Tadashi groaned and extended his silver arm out and smacked the top of the clock, deactivating the suddenly angry alarm. He swung his heavy legs around and set them on the wood floor with a loud clunk.

He gingerly stood up, careful not to clomp around too much. The patch of lighter, newer wood in the middle of the floor made him smile. While he hadn't totally gone through the ceiling, he had still made a hole that sent him down to his shin in the floorboards. Aunt Cass had gone into a fit and made him promise to be more careful before wrapping him up in the 12th hug for that day-turned-evening.

He remembered it well.

After he had broken his hug with Hiro, they had ambled over to where the rest of the team had been attempting to shut down the portal. Baymax informed them that he had scanned the portal and detected a life form with a very weak signature, most likely a person in a coma. Tadashi had ordered Baymax to fly up and bring it outside of the portal before it closed; a task which Baymax performed admirably and with fervor.

When Baymax had landed, he had returned with a rather large capsule which Hiro identified as the one that had been used during the experiment that had cost Callaghan his daughter's life. The team quickly popped the container open with help from Baymax and Tadashi's right arm, to reveal the unconscious and slumped forward body of Abigail Callaghan. Baymax had scooped her up and then waddled over to one of the arriving ambulances to hand over their first patient.

It was then that they had decided it was time to leave the scene, with Callaghan getting apprehended by the police from where he was attempting to regain his bearings, and the neurotransmitters were both destroyed. Still, Tadashi picked up both of the broken headbands and put them in the pocket of his coat until he could properly dispose of them later. It was then that he, his brother, and those who he recalled as being his friends, went home.

Home.

During the journey there, he tried to pull together as many memories of the house he had grown up in as he could. However, not all his memories had fallen into place and he couldn't quite remember everything he knew he should. It bugged him silently as they drove home in Fred's car until the corner house and café came into view. All his discomfort about not remembered was allayed and he jumped out of the car, cutting through traffic to stand in front of the house.

Home.

He realized that Callaghan's warehouse had never been home. It had always felt cold and unwelcoming, its grey interior gloomy and unloving. However, this place was colorful, warm, and comfortable. It was most of all, however, familiar. He felt a peace here that had been absent over the time that he had spent when he had been with Callaghan.

Still, something felt off. He was remembering everything slowly, and most of everything had come back to him, though a few small pieces like dates and small patches in time were still yet to surface. But that wasn't it. He felt like he didn't belong here anymore. He knew he should stay with Hiro and Aunt Cass, especially since they had just gotten him back, but he felt a small instinct to run. Be his own family. But on the other hand, when he thought the word leaving, a tugging yanked him back and made guilt well in his stomach as well as plaster a frown on his features which may or may not have gotten noticed and called out a couple times.

He showered and dressed, being extra careful to keep his stainless steel prosthetics out of a great deal of water. Having lost both his legs below his knees made showering difficult and taking off his right arm just made things downright inconvenient. Whenever he made a joke about it around anyone, they would always fall silent and look away. He often wondered if he took it too far, or they pitied him. It was probably the latter, but he couldn't be sure. He missed the old days, though they were just a few months before. It seemed back then that they could never take anything too far in their books.

No matter how he tried, things just weren't the way they were before.

_Like me_, he thought as he pulled his SFIT T-shirt over his head. He checked his appearance in a mirror and flicked his hand through his freshly cut hair and smoothed it down. After that, he carefully made his way down the narrow staircase to the kitchen and dining room.

"**SURPRISE!**"

Tadashi jumped and yelped, stumbling backward and almost toppling over backwards from his knees up. Once the initial shock had worn off, he looked around the dining room which was currently bathed in early morning sunlight streaming through the windows.

"W-Wha?" he asked, bewildered. Hiro and his Aunt Cass laughed and came over to put their arms around him in a hug.

"It's your 'Welcome Home' party since we didn't have one when you first came back," Aunt Cass smiled as she released him, "there will be doughnuts." Hiro smiled up at him, gap-toothed and ecstatic. His friends smiled over at him and waved.

"Welcome home, Tadashi-kun!"

Their greeting was unanimous and Tadashi smiled at his closest companions. Hiro rushed back around the table and grabbed something off of a chair that his friends were crowded around. He picked up a _huge_ box and brought it over with a little help from Wasabi and Honey Lemon. Baymax appeared from the kitchen with a plate of chocolate-frosted doughnuts and his lower eye-covers rose up to half-way cover his eyes. He was smiling at the group.

Aunt Cass sat Tadashi down in the chair that sat at the head of the table and the trio of friends set the box down on the table in front of him.

"The silver-gear gift wrap is a nice touch guys," Tadashi snickered at the thought. He quickly opened it at the eager command of his friends. He found a black box under the thin layer of paper. He looked around the room which seemed about ready to burst from anticipation. Even Baymax looked excited and hopeful with his large hands clasped in front of his white chest.

Tadashi quickly flipped the lid off the box and rifled through the layers of paper and gaped when he saw what was inside. It was a set of _exceedingly_ good replicas of human feet and an arm.

"It's our gift to you. I mean, it's kind of hard for you to go around in shoes with those," Hiro joked. Tadashi laughed and nodded, removing the arm and looking it over. It was near perfect, like his own. It seemed to be made of a material that was almost like skin.

"How did you know how to make this?" he asked his friends, a small smile playing on his lips. They smiled and looked at Hiro.

"Well, I kind of got Baymax to scan you quietly while you were sleeping and he got pictures of your arm and legs, so I copied them and made them in correct proportions for you using your height measurement and I calculated your weight by a little. They should be generally as good as the ones you made, but they're the reasons I've been looking so tired and staying at the lab for the last week or so. Try em' out," Hiro explained.

"And I helped with the nervous system connections, so they'll probably have split-second reactions like a normal leg. Probably," Wasabi put in.

"And I helped make the skin material. It should be invulnerable to heat, extreme cold, and water. I used a special experimental compound that some students had given up on and I pretty much perfected it. It should react to most other things like water the same was that normal skin would. It'll wrinkle," she finished.

Tadashi quickly unattached his metal arm and, smiling, attached the new arm. It soft and gave the appearance of muscle when he flexed it. Hiro or Wasabi must have installed sound dampeners since he couldn't hear whirring that usually accompanied movement. He did the same thing with his legs, rolling his jeans up to his thighs and attaching his new prosthetics. He was grinning like a child when he tried to stand on the prosthetics and his grin nearly reached his ears when they supported is weight with ease and let him walk at high speed with losing much energy.

It felt normal.

He hugged Hiro, Wasabi, and Honey Lemon, grateful for the sense of comfort that overwhelmed him. The group then proceeded to sit down around the table and dig into the plate of fresh baked doughnuts that melted in their mouths and the velvety chocolate filling spilled out into their mouths. Not long after, his friends had to leave to get to school, Hiro staying behind, not without complaint from their friends, to stay behind and help clean up the kitchen.

When they had finished, Aunt Cass had somehow managed to rope Hiro into a water fight involving the spray hose on the sink and soapy sponges. Tadashi recalled that he had a water gun of some kind upstairs and bolted away to fetch it. He smiled brightly as he took the creaky wooden steps two at a time, ecstatic that they no longer buckled under his weight.

He slowed when he reached the bedroom that he had left only an hour ago in a much darker mood. He quickly assessed the area before charging over to look under Hiro's bed first. Unsuccessful, he quickly zipped around the room, giving it a twice-over in a matter of seconds before heading over to his bed and getting down on his knees and peeking under it.

There it was!

He reached under and pulled the water gun out. He straightened, careful not to bump his head on the bed frame. However, he frowned as something had caught his eye in the dusty darkness beneath the bed. He lowered himself down to the floor and peeked under the bed.

He hadn't been seeing things.

He reached under the bed and his fingertips felt the hard dusty edge of the object he had seen. He searched for the edge and pulled it out. It was heavier than he would have thought it would be, though he had just considerably lessened his strength now without his metal arm. He brushed the top of the box off and ran his finger over a tarnished brass plate with kanji symbols embossed into it.

_Hamada Akio_

This box belonged to his grandfather. Something in his mind sparked, like it did whenever he was about to remember something. Ah, yes. He had seen this box before many years ago. It was not long before his parents had passed away that his father had taken him aside and shown him the box. He had explained that the first son of the family was to inherit the contents of the box for every generation and that no one had opened it since his grandfather. He had told Tadashi not to open it unless he absolutely needed to. He hadn't told Tadashi what was in the box, but Tadashi figured that if he didn't now, he would never know.

Unsure, he reached for the likewise tarnished brass locks and flipped them up one at a time, nearly cutting himself in the process. He swallowed and dug his fingernails into the small ridge that the latches sat on. He pressed up and the lid came surprisingly easily. Once he had his fingers under the edge, he hesitated, thinking on his father's words. He knew it was horribly cliché, but what if something would happen to him if he opened it. If this box went back in his family line as far as he thought it might, the chances were that it had roots in old Japan, which meant that there could very well be something sinister about the contents.

Steeling his resolve, he lifted the lid the rest of the way and clenched his eyes shut just in case something nasty flew out at him. Instead, when he cracked his eyes open once again, he was met with the sight of a pair of ninjato swords and a strange helmet. On closer inspection the two swords bore the Japanese kanji symbols for "fight" and "defend."

The helmet appeared to be a newer addition and looked similar to his Yokai mask, though it was a full white helmet with red lines drawn all over its surface. He looked past it to see the underside of the lid bearing the mark that the helmet's lines made up along with another kanji symbol that read "scarface."

The title seemed familiar. Something in his mind sparked again, but nothing was remembered. It felt almost like he was somehow connected to the word. No, the name.

This Scarface, was someone in his family.

No, he was Scarface.

He needed only to look into the mirror to tell. Though Baymax had been regularly applying healing cream to his scars, and they had long since faded away to be replaced by normal skin, he could always trace the outlines.

But was Scarface a hero?

He would make him be. Someone had to help. That's what he had told Hiro the night of the fire. He stood by those words. Why try to help people when you run the risk of failure on way when you can try a different one and inspire people; before you die, even. A smile crept onto his features as he began to think of the future once more.

It suddenly seemed bright.

He would use his shortcomings and falls to his advantage.

To the advantage of others.

He would be a hero.

His name is Tadashi Hamada.

And he is _Scarface_.

A/N: This is an origin story that I have written sort of for myself, because I am in denial about Tadashi dying(alright I have a crush on him, there I said it). In this one, he becomes Yokai but then Hiro saves him. This last chapter here is a prologue to the story that I plan to write. I will be attempting to write and illustrate a comic or manga about his life as Scarface, a superhero. It will be titled: Second Chance Hero. Here is the summary, please let me know if it or the idea needs help:

Tadashi Hamada: graduated SFIT college student, genius robotics scientist, enterprising young man, and super-vigilante. After spending a year in Japan, the 19 year old has completed ninja school and is ready to be turned loose on the world. As if there weren't enough of them already in New York, Tadashi has acquired a job in Stark Industries' robotics lab. Running the streets at night when crime still reigns, Tadashi gets work done in the dark while Peter Parker and the Avengers sleep. However, things get tough for Tadashi when three mysterious super villains show up and give him trouble separately. Will he be enough to take care of the city he now calls home? Or will he be forced to do something that any solo hero despises and ask for help?


End file.
